Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing

Help with merge

Hello! I work at Category:Articles to be merged after an Articles for deletion discussion, and I'm trying to merge Prefetch buffer to per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prefetch buffer. However, I'm having trouble since I don't know much about the topic and want to avoid giving undue weight to the topic of prefetch buffers. Would it be appropriate to merge the entire contents of the article, as a new section, or should I keep only a sentence or two? --Cerebellum (talk) 23:11, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Cerebellum

My advice is: Take it easy. Just read both, copy the contents of Prefetch buffer into dynamic random access memory under a new level 2 section (== ==) and edit the contents so that they look like an integral part of the article. As for the rest, editors watching that article will take care of it.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Dynamic random-access memory seems like an inappropriate target for a merge to me. Synchronous dynamic random-access memory might make a little more sense, but that whole AfD seems to have received too little attention, so I would take its outcome with a grain of salt. Merging two articles by doing a copy-and-paste job and without understanding the contents of either is nearly always a bad idea, though. —Ruud 16:21, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello! AFAIK, the Prefetch buffer article is slightly skewed. Please have a look at the functional diagram of DDR2 (figure 1 in the PDF, on page 2), and you'll see that there are no additional buffers that would be called "prefetch buffers". There are I/O registers, of course, but they are part of the usual DRAM design that involves no data prefetching. The article's description of data prefetching either describes a DRAM design that isn't mainstream, or seems to be confused with a feature of memory controllers that enables data prefetching from DRAM into L1 and L2 CPU caches as an attempt toward performance improvements by exploiting spatial locality of data, and, consequently, the row buffer locality that hinges on already opened rows; please see a Xeon Phi description and a DRAM controller design for more details. The only clear mentioning of a prefetch register I've found is this one, but the section 55.6 of the book is rather terse and quite confusing in explaining the illustrations. (To make it worse, the book has been scanned upside-down. Go figure. :)

With all that in mind, IMHO the article shouldn't have been called "Prefect buffer" in the first place; instead, "DDR SDRAM prefetch architecture" would have been much more appropriate. We might want to merge the content into our Double data rate article, which already has the Double data rate § Relation of bandwidth and frequency section that deals with the internal and external clock frequencies, and the description of prefetch architecture should fit there very well. Another option, which might be even better, would be to merge the content into our Synchronous dynamic random-access memory article, and to provide a brief summary in the Double data rate § Relation of bandwidth and frequency section. At the same time, merged content should be edited to match the description of DDR SDRAM prefetch architecture, as that's what we have references for.

Thoughts? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 04:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, if you look at the first versions of the article the author is describing the kn-prefetch architecture and later edits seems to have made the article a bit more confused. If we want to describe this, then Synchronous dynamic random-access memory would be the right place, as it already covers all the other technical intricacies of SDRAM. The title "Prefetch buffer" just seems to be a misnomer, so I don't think we even want to keep this as a redirect. But what to do with the contents? Is there anything worth salvaging, or should it just be deleted, so we can start over? —Ruud 12:24, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, Prefetch buffer shouldn't be kept as a redirect once the merger is complete. I'd say that about 20 to 25% of the content is salvageable, so IMHO it would be better not to start from a blank canvas. Agreed about the Synchronous dynamic random-access memory article as the destination, but we should also add a brief summary to the Double data rate § Relation of bandwidth and frequency section – that would round it up nicely. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 12:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, thank you all for the input! Sorry for the delay but I just now performed the merge, with Synchronous dynamic random-access memory as the target. I did not add anything to double data rate because I was not sure how to summarize the content. Also, even if prefetch buffer is not a good redirect, we have to keep it for attribution purposes. Please take a look at the SDRAM article and if things are now hopelessly confused feel free to revert so I can try again. --Cerebellum (talk) 00:12, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: IMHO, there is some room for improvement in the Synchronous dynamic random-access memory § DDR SDRAM prefetch architecture section, but I'd suggest that you add a few reliable sources first, which are required anyway, and we'll start from there. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 02:18, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Computing vs. Internet projects

Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/sidebar mentions Internet among descendant projects, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Internet#Parents mentions Computing.

Is it correct to add a page to multiple projects, even if they are descendants of one another? That looks like an error to me, see e.g. Talk:Email client, where "Computing" occurs twice. So, I moved Email box from Computing to Internet, and will continue to do so unless someone tells me not to. ale (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

It would be nice to get {{WikiProject Computing}} updated with parameters for all descendent projects. ~Kvng (talk) 14:53, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Email is perhaps a bad example, since internet email protocols are only a subset of all email. I believe email should go back to computing. Peter Flass (talk) 06:26, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Hm... in fact, X.400 is in {{WikiProject Computing}} as well as in its descendant {{WikiProject Telecommunications}}, so perhaps I should have just added {{WikiProject Internet}} without removing the existing claim. Although I've been registered at Wikipedia for a decade, I never worked on specific projects before, and still don't have quite grasped what that entails. By your logic, any page belonging to a given project should also belong to all of its parent projects, not to mention that internet email is a form of telecommunication too. But what practical difference does project affiliation bring about? For the time being, I got two replies here and none at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Internet#What about the email?
ale (talk) 11:39, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Category: Systems Network Architecture

I would like to propose the addition of Category: Systems Network Architecture to be used for all SNA devices and protocols. I'm not sure where this would fit, it looks like not as a subcategory of Network architecture. Peter Flass (talk) 06:19, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Merger discussion RfC

Request received to merge articles: MIME and Mailcap into Media type; dated July 2015; Discussion at Talk:Media type § Mergers proposed GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 14:41, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Help request (Jpaulm)

This one is a bit tricky. Recently an editor (@Jpaulm:) came to WP:REFUND to request restoration of the article John Paul Morrison, with the assertion that it was deleted by a vandal and that his userpage was also gone. A look shows that his userpage was not deleted and that he seems to be referring to the deletion of John Paul Morrison, which was deleted as spam by @JzG:. @Guy Macon: is also involved in this.

The problem here is that ultimately this account appears to be used by Morrison himself, although that is in question given that at one point the editor refers to Morrison in the third person. This poses a strong conflict of interest and I've openly told him that it would not be a good idea for him to edit the article directly. He was told this in the past, but has since made direct edits to the (now deleted) article and to Flow-based programming, which Morrison created/pioneered. This appears to be the main/sole thing that Morrison is notable for.

What I need help with here is essentially to see if Morrison would warrant his own article outside of the main one for flow-based programming and if so, then he needs someone unaffiliated to create and edit the page. I'm concerned that there is some WP:IDHT going on here, given that Jpaulm was told to seek outside help in the past and in the past 24 hours, but has followed none of the advice. The reason I mention the background to this is that I'm not entirely sure how helpful Jpaulm will be here and I'm mildly debating blocking him for the comment that gives off the impression that he's not Morrison himself. That there's also concerns about him using Wikipedia to promote himself (as he'd certainly benefit from having a separate article from the flow-based programming entry) doesn't help matters either. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Morrison has been engaging in assiduous self-promotion on Wikipedia for a long time. Frankly, I do not trust his word on this and I think the best thing is to leave it until someone provably independent comes along with a neutral article. And I don't mind betting that the first user to try this will turn out to be a sockpuppet. Yes, I am a nasty suspicious bastard, but this cynicism is based on long experience. Guy (Help!) 17:05, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• I ended up blocking them. Either he's Morrison and making promotional edits or he's someone who isn't Morrison and making promotional edits. That they didn't do any of the things I asked them to do really didn't make them look good. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:08, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• @Tokyogirl79: Hi. What I am going to say is not related to this subject; but I think it is imperative that you learn the difference between {{U}} and {{Ping}} templates, and know when to use them. Being an admin, expectations are a little bit higher. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:51, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
• I did want to ping the involved people to the conversation so they could take part in things. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 18:09, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• I believe that ping was the correct choice here. Also the user who goes by "Guy" (actual user name JzG) is not me. I never omit the "Macon" so as to avoid confusion. Finally, I need a brief reminder as to how I am involved here. I can't find any interaction between me and Jpaulm -- likely because I am not an admin and cannot see deleted pages, but maybe I am just looking in the wrong places. I will say that I have seen many administrative actions by Tokyogirl79 and by JzG/Guy and hold both in high regard. I would be shocked if either one got this one wrong. If anyone wants my opinion of the deleted page, please drop me a note on my talk page and post a copy in my userspace, which I will save to my hard disk and delete from Wikipedia as soon as I see it. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Merging GoToMyPC and GoToMyPC Pro

Hello! I'm writing to point editors to a discussion I started about merging the GoToMyPC and GoToMyPC Pro articles. The two entries are nearly identical and there doesn't appear to be significant coverage of the Pro version as a standalone product. I think it makes sense to merge the two, but I'd like to hear from others. As a disclosure, I have a financial conflict of interest and I am making this request on behalf of Citrix Systems, the maker of GoToMyPC. I will not be making any changes to the articles myself. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 16:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that this merge has been completed. Thanks! Heatherer (talk) 17:14, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Category:Service Management

Category:Service Management, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 03:19, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Please help judging which version should be used in article Dew computing

I made modifications to Dew computing, and it was reverted by an editor. At the beginning, the comment was 'spam'; later, the comment was COI. I asked questions and discussed with related editors, and it turned out that the problem was my ID: Ywangupeica. It showed that I am the author of some papers I cited.

I read Wikipedia’s rules related to “Conflict of Interest”, and found that the way to determine whether an author has “Conflict of Interest” is a Trust Test: “[W]ould relevant others … [readers, editors, admins, arbitration committee, Wikimedia Foundation] … trust my judgment if they knew I was in this situation?” I think I have passed this Trust Test. If readers knew I am one of the authors in this area, they will still trust this article because all the facts I wrote can be verified online, and I wrote the article in a neutral way. The fact that I used an ID that could be linked to me easily is also an indication that I did not intent to write in a biased way.

My explanations were all ignored and the editor reverted the article three times back to Kkovacic00’s version (after minor changes by editor BG19bot) even another editor did not agree. Please comparing these two versions, which one is biased? which one is more informative? which one should be used in Wikipedia?

This COI problem is only because the author/reviser was me. If someone else makes such changes, everything should be fine. I ask the experts in this project to evaluate the history of this article, to judge which version should be used, and to make necessary changes. Thanks. Ywangupeica (talk) 20:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

After I posted my opinion about the editor's reverting, few hours after, this editor nominated deletion of this article without point out the reasons. This is not a fair and rational action. This reaction to my post is full of personal power over me. I ask other editors to check this situation. Ywangupeica (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Relevant discussions:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cloud-dew architecture
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dew computing

QVVERTYVS (hm?) 08:50, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear Editors: When you judge this article, please notice one of the previous versions is significantly different from the current one. This is because of the reverting. The following version describes the definition and history, provides more citation and other information: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dew_computing&oldid=701776129. Ywangupeica (talk) 11:13, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

news: (and other protocol prefixes?)

(Disclaimer₁: I am obviously not a web programmer.)
(Disclaimer₂: If this page is the wrong place for this topic, please advise me where to post it.)

The External Links for Callahan's Crosstime Saloon include

Virtual Callahan's Place on Usenet news

which links to news:alt.callahans When I click on the link, my browser says

The address wasn't understood

Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because one of the following protocols (news) isn't associated with any program or is not allowed in this context.

You might need to install other software to open this address.

Typing news://alt.callahans (or clicking on it in a preview of this page) in my address bar gives the same result.

The URLs don't work for me in Chrome either. Is this a dead link? It's listed on Callahan's Place (The Semi-Official All-Callahanian Web Page), but that hasn't been updated since February 8, 2014. Is the news scheme obsolete? News: and News:// both redirect to Network News Transfer Protocol, aka NNTP, but the article makes no mention of the prefix with or without slashes. Ditto for http: / http:// and HTML. Should they?

Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 01:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Buffer space (software development)

Hi. Can someone from the project look at the recently created Buffer space (software development). It seems like an article that would be best redirected somewhere but I'm not quite sure where exactly! (Or is deletion the way forward?) In any case, help would be appreciated Pichpich (talk) 21:48, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I haven't heard this terminology before. The article is unreferenced. A web search doesn't immediately turn up anything. Buffer space is a pretty overloaded term so we can't expect too much from a web search. I'm dubious. As far as redirect targets, doesn't look like Data buffer is a good choice. I don't see any mention of buffer in Executable or Object file. I think deleting may be the best way forward. I've added a couple tags to help move that along. ~Kvng (talk) 22:00, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello! I agree that the article should be deleted as misleading and completely unreferenced. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 15:49, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

All right then! See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buffer space (software development). Pichpich (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Pokki

Would editors with relevant understanding care to take a look at Pokki and the last section of its talk page, where it was thought last year that some mention should be made in the article of potential security and performance problems, but reliable sources were lacking. An IP editor has recently got blocked for trying to warn the world that "Pokki is spyware". Their unsourced edits were rightly reverted, but in view of much adverse comment on forums, maybe the possible drawbacks should be mentioned in the article if appropriate sourcing can be found: Noyster (talk), 23:33, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Notability of UNIX commands

We have probably dozens of articles covering various computer commands and utilities. Not infrequently these come up for deletion with WP:NOTMANUAL and notability concerns. I don't know what the answer is but I invite members of this project to a discussion on the latest to come up at WP:AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Id (Unix) ~Kvng (talk) 13:59, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I say we should not, in principle, have articles about individual commands unless significant coverage of their purpose or history is available. Where possible, I think we should merge these entries into (or replace them by) articles discussing broader concepts; e.g., Bg (Unix) and Fg (Unix) now both redirect to Job control (Unix), and the articles about id (Unix) and whoami should be replaced by an encyclopedic overview of the Unix security model. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 14:34, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Given that you see a future for the content in id (Unix) and given that Unix security model does not exist, would you support or oppose id (Unix) deletion at this time? Can we extrapolate this to all the other stand-alone articles about commands? ~Kvng (talk) 16:54, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I support the deletion. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

@Kvng: I'm not convinced that the current content of that article is useful; "replace" does not necessarily mean "merge and redirect" since that would imply a promise to keep a list of commands in the broader articles and I'm not sure if exhaustive listings of commands are useful (I'm not particularly happy with the situation with fg and bg, which I'd much rather integrate into the prose of the article). QVVERTYVS (hm?) 18:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion discussion of DataLounge

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DataLounge -- Softlavender (talk) 04:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

A draft at AFC needs help

Draft:Warp speed Data Transfer needs help to demonstrate notability. There is a discussion about the issue at the WP:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk#06:27:07, 23 February 2016 review of submission by Laurent Demailly, Thanks. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Dodger67. I am very sorry to say that the article is hopeless. Most of it is written like an advertisement while sources 1 through 7 and 10 are worthless. Notability is the smallest problem. The article has literally no contents.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 09:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Criticism on Stack Overflow

We have something interesting going on Talk:Stack_Overflow#Criticism. -- ChamithN (talk) 11:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:Widget toolkits

How can it be that XCB is listed as a widget toolkit? Shouldn't Wayland also be listed then? --146.140.3.24 (talk) 16:33, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Open source philosophy

Please join this discussion about Category:Open source philosophy. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:01, 12 March 2016 (UTC)